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Using a standard, consumer-grade audio interface that is built into most computers will not achieve the performance you're after. You will need a professional-level audio interface with ASIO drivers to achieve the kind of audio performance you're talking about. Even then, you may not get down below 5ms.

Also, as you're playing sampled pianos, getting the maximum performance would mean having the samples located on a separate hard drive from the system drive and also having that drive be as fast as possible (i.e. 7200 RPM or more with a fast I/O and seek times).

- vibrations; can cause a hard disk failure or a freeze during a performance;- reliability; buy top of the line laptop with good I/O options (Firewire + USB); a lot of musicians use MAc's but a high end PC made for gaming is also a cheaper option;- tweaking the OS specifically for audio; forget internet, games, lots of processes running, etc.. Create a solid platform that you can rely on; use this laptop only for playing;- reading piano libraries; use two separate drives, one for OS and one for samples. If you can go with two SSD, they increase your laptop performance and speed and keep the heat inside way down;- use a good external audio device with balanced outputs;

Finally... Be prepared for the worst and have a line out from your keyboard to the mixer.

It should also be noted that the lower the latency you're pushing for, the smaller the buffer sizes and the more likely that you'll experience performance issues with your system (i.e. audio pops/clicks, drop-outs, etc.

If concerned about vibration and shocks to the hard drives, it might be best to consider solid state drives, which take the moving parts of a standard drive out of the picture, and also offer much faster performance. They are more expensive, though.

I struggled for many hours trying to get my Windows machines to play well with VI's. Then a fellow on Piano World Digital forum said Apple products work with no problems. I bought a used Mac Mini and sure enough it worked right away. No latency, plug and play with all the VI's I have (Alicia's Keys, True Piano, NI Grand).

But then I bought an acoustic piano so my mac now sits idle:-)

_________________________
Ed (Out in the West Texas town of El Paso)Yamaha T118, Casio WK6600, Yamaha PSR3000

"...But then I bought an acoustic piano so my mac now sits idle:-)..."

Just as I fought down the impulse to say that an acoustic piano would meet the standard the OP wishes, with no costly and vexing additional equipment.

I told myself, sternly, that it was no answer at all... except, it is the answer. Or, an answer.

My impression is that many people think that latency under 10 ms is not noticeable; 6, 7, or 8 is thought acceptable. Anyway, I am curious about what E-Mu interfaces the other poster is referring to. I have the E-Mu 1616m, which is satisfactory if something of a bother, but it appears that Creative Labs has abandoned the product line, and has not updated the drivers or user interface for several years. Sweetwater no longer carries the line.

I know the OP's question is on the wrong forum, but since we've gone this far, I am curious about what E-Mu product is being referred to.

Agree about E-Mu. They are essentially dead (though who knows they could be reborn in the future).

I will also mention that Firewire is essentially a dead technology. I wouldn't be looking too hard for a laptop that has that as an option. USB2.0 has supplanted it as the more standard interface for professional interfaces. USB3.0 (Superspeed) which is available on most laptops today will eventually supplant USB2.0 sound devices while more exotic devices may go Thunderbolt. USB3.0 is supposed to be backwards compatible with 2.0 but many audio vendors have problems running their USB2.0 devices on USB3.0 ports (caveat emptor).

Regarding 5ms, yes you can get there pretty safely but as others have mentioned not without a decent interface. You can even get to 2ms though you might suffer occasional dropouts. Look to RME or Roland {Duo/Quad/Octa}Capture. But be prepared to drop some real dough.

The comment of "0ms monitoring" (usually marketed as "zero latency monitoring" since it is not truly 0ms) is a pro pos of nothing and means the interface can turn a mic or line input going into the device and mix it with audio/sound out of the computer/software. When you are talking triggering sounds in a software engine latency is the addition of input latency (from MIDI or virtual USB MIDI) plus outbound buffering latency.

Regarding fast harddrives, depending on the software and the sample set used you might be better served upgrading your memory to 16GB than shelling out $300-$500 for a secondary drive. You definitely do not need a secondary SSD since most if not all of a sampled instrument can be loaded or cached into RAM unless you had *really* large samples (sampled at 96K). That said, SSDs can do wonders to improve the overall efficiency and speed of your machine. Personally though, if I were to put an SSD in my laptop, I'd put it on the system drive where the pagefile/swapfile is located.